Charity Commission chair Julia Unwin has condemned “in the strongest terms the thuggery and intimidation” Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers have faced from far-right protestors.

She used part of her speech at the regulator’s annual general meeting this week to criticise the attacks on the charity in recent weeks “and indeed over months and even years”.

“Charities must only do things that meet their purpose and objects. For the RNLI that means rescuing people in peril in the sea. It is not their right to do so. It is their absolute duty,” she said.

While charities “must accept that people might disapprove of their work “ and have the “courage to tolerate vigorous debate” she warned that the sector “must never grow accustomed to criminal or para-criminal abuse”.

Her predecessor, interim chair Mark Simms used his speech at last year’s annual public meeting to also condemn “the growing hostility faced by some involved in charities, simply for doing their lawful jobs”, said Unwin, who added, “I agree with every word he said”.

While the powers of the Commission “are limited in addressing the root causes of these divisions in our society” she said that the regulator is “willing, again and again, for as long as it takes, to resist the normalisation of violence” and to “draw the line between heated discussion and emotive and powerful disagreement and harassment or abuse”.

Last month abuse and threats of RNLI stepped up amid right-wing anti-immigration protests in Dover and Portsmouth.

This prompted the charity’s chief executive Peter Sparkes to condemn threats from “those who would hide behind a balaclava or a keyboard”.

Another lifeboat charity, East Sussex Pett Level Independent Rescue Boat, was also targeted by protestors, who tracked its crew’s movements while answering a call out and then subjected its volunteers to a social media attack.

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